Run a model from Node.js

Learn how to run a model on Replicate using Node.js.

This guide includes a quickstart to scaffold a new project with a single command in your terminal, followed by a step-by-step tutorial for setting up a project from scratch. By the end, you’ll have a working Node.js project that can run any model on Replicate.

Prerequisites

Node.js 16 or greater: The simplest way to install Node.js is using the installer at nodejs.org.

🐇 Quickstart: Scaffold a project with a one-liner

To get up and running as quickly as possible, you can use create-replicate, an npm package that creates a project directory for you, writes some starter code, installs the dependencies, and runs the code.

Run the following command to scaffold a new project:

npx create-replicate

That’s it. You should now have a working Node.js project that generates images with the FLUX.1 [schnell] model using Replicate’s API.

If you want to use a different model than FLUX.1 [schnell], specify it when creating your project:

npx create-replicate --model black-forest-labs/flux-schnell

To learn more about scaffolding new Node.js projects, check out the create-replicate documentation.

🐢 Slowstart: Set up a project from scratch

If you prefer to manually set up your Node.js project step by step, follow the instructions below.

Step 1: Authenticate

Authenticate by setting your Replicate API token in an environment variable:

export REPLICATE_API_TOKEN=r8_******

Step 2: Create a new Node.js project

# create the directory
mkdir my-replicate-app
cd my-replicate-app

# set up package.json
npm init -y
npm pkg set type=module

Step 3: Install the Replicate JavaScript client

Use npm to install the Replicate JavaScript client:

npm install replicate

Step 4: Write some code

Create a file called index.js and add the following code:

import Replicate from "replicate";
const replicate = new Replicate();

console.log("Running the model...");
const [output] = await replicate.run(
  "black-forest-labs/flux-schnell",
  {
    input: {
      prompt: "An astronaut riding a rainbow unicorn, cinematic, dramatic",
    },
  }
);

// Save the generated image
import { writeFile } from "node:fs/promises";

await writeFile("./output.png", output);
console.log("Image saved as output.png");

Step 5: Run your code

Next, run your code from your terminal:

node index.js

You should see output indicating the model is running and the image has been saved:

Running the model...
Image saved as output.png

Next steps

Now you’re up and running on Replicate with Node.js. 🚀🐢

In this guide you used the FLUX.1 [schnell] image generation model, but you can adapt the code to run any model on Replicate. Try editing existing images with text prompts using FLUX.1 Kontext Pro, or writing AI-generated code using Claude Sonnet 4. There are thousands of public models on Replicate, and you can run any of them using the project you just created.

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